Producing nano-scale computers with molecules offers substantial potential, in part because such computers may be well-suited for solving certain computation problems. In particular, computers employing biomolecules can be compatible with biological environments, rendering them amenable for use in complex-disease diagnostics or even treatments.
The ability to translate one nucleic acid sequence into another in principle allows one to build logic gates and networks with nucleic acids. These gates and networks are driven by two events, hybridization and strand displacement, both of which generally are thermodynamically favorable, i.e., they involve a transition from a higher- to a lower-energy state. Thus, both events can occur spontaneously in a system.
Hybridization involves free, single-stranded stretches of nucleic acids. Accordingly, a nucleic-acid network may be regulated by the availability of these free strands.
A “sequestering event” allows certain sequences to be available conditionally to the rest of the network. Such events empower the construction of translators, which convert one single-stranded nucleic acid sequence into a different single-stranded nucleic acid sequence. These translators are the foundation on which can be built, with nucleic acids, basic logic operators such as AND, NOT, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR and XNOR. From these and other logic components, larger networks can be constructed that include components such as amplifiers. Accordingly, these translation events are important for information processing with nucleic acids and molecular computing.